Dexter's First Run

Unlike Lucky, my super pump, who come with me everywhere but the shower, Dexter sometimes gets left behind.

Not because he's been misbehaving. Not because I don't like him.

Unlike Lucky, Dexter is not waterproof. At all. And he's kinda pricey so I'm a little protective of his sensitive nature. That means that he stays in the locker when I swim and he stays on the counter when I head out for runs.

It's actually a little sad because the first thing I hear when I walk up to my locker after a swim is his sad little vibrations from inside.

"Hello?? Is anyone out there? Have you seen my mom?"

Saturday morning I woke up feeling well-rested after a lovely night of blood sugar steadiness. No midnight buzzing from Dexter meant a solid 8-hour sleep. My body was raring to go for its 16k run.

Then I heard the 40km/hour winds howling outside and decided that I would wait until Sunday for my long run. Sunday was supposed to be 10km/hour winds, sunny and heading up to 12 degrees by noon. So I cycled for a bit, stretched, iced and prepared for my Sunday long run.

Saturday night I went to bed with steady blood sugars. Unfortunately Dexter woke me up a few hours later with high numbers. I tested to be sure he was right and then took a correction bolus. Thus began a five hour ping pong match. Every fifteen minutes he buzzed and woke me up. Every 30 minutes I took more insulin unless I was dropping. Back and forth we went. Finally around 4am I took an extra large dose, dropped down to 7 and held steady until 8am when I stumbled bleary-eyed out of bed.

The sun was indeed shining. The wind was indeed calmer. But I was not feeling particularly frisky for a run.

Unfortunately I was running out of weekend so a long run was going to happen whether I was feeling it or not.

After that night of unexplained highs, I was a little worried about spiking up again during my run. I didn't want to have to lug my glucometer with me and test every half hour so I decided that Dexter was coming along for the ride.

He seemed excited about it to be honest.

I took him out of his protective case and tucked him into a ziplock bag. I filled my pockets with emergency carbs, tissues and lip balm.

Pre-run I was 5.5. I had a date and a gel and headed out.

At 5.5k I peeked at Dexter. He said I was 7.4 and holding steady.

Doug met me at 10k. Dexter told me I was 8.5 and a glucometer check told me I was 9.0. I drank some water and some Nuun and soldiered on. Doug met me again at 13k and Dexter said I was 7.5. I drank a bit more and headed home.

Once home, Dexter said I was 7.0. My glucometer said I was 5.5.

He survived his first run and did fairly well. I know that continuous glucose monitors are not as precise during rapid changes in blood sugar and during exercise. That being said, it was neat to see what my blood sugar does on a 16k run. I've never seen that before. And it was comforting to know what was happening, especially after the night I had.

And, despite a pretty rough night, I managed a decent 16k run. I finished it in 1:46 and, in case you didn't notice, my blood sugar was 5.5 when I started and 5.5 when I finished.

Can't complain about that.